Declared fit by doctors at a top Delhi hospital four hours earlier, arrested former Jharkhand minister Yogendra Sao was admitted to a VIP cottage at Ranchi's Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) late Sunday after developing a sudden ‘chest pain’.

Declared fit by doctors at a top Delhi hospital four hours earlier, arrested former Jharkhand minister Yogendra Sao was admitted to a VIP cottage at Ranchi's Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) late Sunday after developing a sudden ‘chest pain’.

Sao, accused by the Hazaribagh police of forming and funding two left wing extremist groups — the Jharkhand Tigers and Jharkhand Bachao Aandolan — was flown to Ranchi at 5.30pm Sunday after the Jharkhand Police secured his three-day transit remand following a medical test.

However, the former minister was taken to the state-run Ranchi hospital as he complained of chest pain right after landing in the Jharkhand capital. While a preliminary test at RIMS, too, declared Sao fit around 7.30pm, he was later admitted to the VIP cottage at 9.30pm.

“Sao was fit as per tests by Safdarjung Hospital (in Delhi). We too found no major health problems (in the preliminary test),” medical officer at the RIMS, Dr Umesh Kumar, said.

Eyewitnesses said the minister was lodged at the VIP cottage instead of being taken to the Hazaribagh Central Jail after his son Sumeet Sao met the RIMS director Dr SN Choudhary. “Sao was admitted to RIMS because of chest pain. He is being kept under medical vigil,” Choudhary said on Monday.

Dr Kumar, however, could not hide his bewilderment over the move to admit Sao in the cottage. “...almost suddenly he developed acute chest pains and we had to transfer him to the VIP rooms of the hospital,” he said.

A Hazaribagh court had last month issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Sao over his alleged links with the rebels.

VIP Cottage No. 14 at the RIMS is fast becoming a seemingly hospitable environment for Jharkhand politicians who are arrested afresh or are already lodged in prisons across the state.

In the past two years, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha legislator Sita Soren, accused in the 2012 Rajya Sabha horse-trading case; former Ranchi mayor Rama Khalko, accused of influencing voters in municipal polls; JMM legislator Nalin Soren, accused in the Rs 26-crore seed scam and former chief minister Madhu Koda, accused in a multi-crore money laundering scam have used the comforts and facilities of the VIP cottage.